Kettch Me If You Can
by Kettch-22
Summary: Will Wedge ever figure out who's behind all the Lt. Kettch jokes in Wraith Squadron? Will he ever get revenge? A Wraith Squadron story! Soon to never be finished!
1. The Promotion of Lieutenant Kettch

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

I decided to take the time to go back and combine the first two chapters, which I discovered should be one chapter (but not until _after _I'd posted them). This unfortunately means that now there is one less chapter to this fic, but I'll do my best to fix that by writing fast and posting another chapter tomorrow, if we're lucky.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: You mean if we're cursed.

ME: Or you could look at it that way.

* * *

**Prologue: The Promotion of Lieutenant Kettch **

Wedge Antilles opened his office door and froze. A peculiar sight greeted his eyes. A life-sized stuffed Ewok clad in the bright orange jumpsuit of a New Republic pilot was seated behind his desk, arms crossed and leaning back jauntily with its feet propped upon Wedge's desk.

Wedge slammed his door closed before he had to see more. "Wes, this is getting out of hand," he said to what should have been thin air.

Wes Janson suddenly appeared at his side. "Who, me?" he said innocently.

Wedge glared. He hadn't had his morning cup of caf yet. Lieutenant Kettch was not the ideal substitute. "Wes, why is Kettch in my office?"

Janson grinned merrily. "I think the question is, what are _you_ doing in _Kettch_'s office?"

"What?" groaned Wedge in dismay. Janson just pointed at the door, his grin growing wider. Or, more accurately, at the nameplate on it, Wedge discovered as his bleary eyes focused more clearly. When he had left his office yesterday, it had read GENERAL WEDGE ANTILLES. Today, it read GENERAL KETTCH. It looked like the lieutenant had been promoted.

"Yeah, haven't you heard?" Wedge heard a new voice say, almost cheerfully. Hobbie Klivian joined them at staring at the nameplate. "You're out, Wedge, and Kettch is in. Now _he's_ the general, and _you're_ the mascot."

Wedge seriously considered banging his head against the offending door. He reconsidered. It seemed to him that Janson's or Hobbie's would do nicely instead. He narrowed his eyes. "Which one of you did it?"

"It wasn't me," Janson smirked.

"No idea," Hobbie said, moving swiftly away.

Wedge just narrowed his eyes further. "It was you," he said finally, to Janson. Hobbie had never been the prankster type, but this was right up Janson's alley.

"How could it have been me?" Janson said, radiating a thoroughly unconvincing innocence. "Where would I have gotten the key to your office? And Kettch has been touring the Senate for the past week. How could I have gotten him back?"

"I don't know," said Wedge, "and I don't care. In fact, I don't _want_ to know. Just remember that I _do_ get revenge."

Janson's grin faltered momentarily as he recalled the last time Wedge had been forced to take his revenge. Then it returned full blast. "You still can't prove it was me," he said confidently.

Wedge grinned too. Unlike Janson's, his was predatory. "Who says I need to?"

. . .

Wedge closed the door behind him with a bit more force than usual and turned around to face his desk.

He glared at Kettch, who merely stared back from shiny black expressionless eyes. Or maybe not so expressionless. Wedge thought he could detect some glee in those eyes. Yes. It was definitely glee.

To his dismay, Wedge felt his annoyance drain out of him to be replaced with an unholy desire to laugh.

He removed Kettch from the chair behind his desk and relocated him to another. Wedge slumped down in his chair. He pressed a button on the comm built into his desk and requested the janitor. He intended to have the offending nameplate removed as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry, sir," said the pleasant female voice of his secretary. "There is no listing for the janitor's closet."

Wedge bit back a "sithspit."

"Why not?" he managed to grit out between clenched teeth.

"Because—" The secretary's voice cut off in poorly concealed laughter.

"Sithspit!" he snarled, and turned off the comm.

Someone rapped on the door and Wedge looked up, momentarily distracted from his irritation. The door opened and a familiar head poked into Wedge's office.

"Luke!" exclaimed Wedge, standing up. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Wedge," responded Luke Skywalker, Hero of the New Republic and all-round Good Guy. "I'm visiting Leia and the kids on Coruscant and I thought I'd drop by to say hi. And anyway, that's what I wanted to ask you. What are _you _doing here?"

"What do you mean?" Wedge asked suspiciously. He sensed Janson's hand in this, whatever it was.

"I mean, why aren't you in your office?" Luke continued, with an expression that might have been bafflement on his face. Or amusement.

Wedge said grimly, "Show me."

Luke led him out of his office and down the hall to the junior's closet.

Or at least, what used to be the janitor's closet. Now the nameplate on the door read LIEUTENANT ANTILLES. Wedge opened the door resignedly.

The cramped space inside had been emptied of all janitorial items, and the space now housed a desk and chairs and all the stuff one would normally expect to see in an office.

If all the stuff in a normal office were Ewok-sized.

Wedge felt his annoyance returning, mixed with a sense of admiration at Janson's attention to detail, which included a tiny datapad resting on the tiny desk that said:

_ Yub, yub, Lieutenant!_

_ As you can see, even demotions have their perks._

But mostly he felt annoyance.

Wedge looked irritably at Luke, who was giggling like a drunken Twi'lek bargirl. "How much of this do you get?" he asked sourly.

"None," Luke admitted. "But it's pretty funny even without the inside joke. Perhaps you should explain."

"All right," said Wedge. "As long as you help me get rid of this mess. And get Wes back, of course."

"As a rule, Jedi don't believe in revenge," Luke said, and then he said, "Wait a minute. How do you know this is Wes's doing?"

"It's a long story," Wedge said, "and it's got Wes's doings all over it."

"Shoot," said Luke, getting as comfortable as possible in one of the Ewok-sized chairs.

"Only if Wes is in my sights," responded Wedge.

* * *

Review!


	2. His Name Is Kettch, and He's an Ewok

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

This is the former chapter three, now masquerading as chapter two. I've added a touch of dialogue to this chapter, so tell me what you think of the changes. I reread that passage in _Wraith Squadron _and realized I'd left a small chunk of their conversation out. It irked me, so I rewrote it in here. I also took my Crazy Cousin Adam (I forget what name he used to review this fic)'s suggestion of deleting a particular sentance. But fear not, for it will return, but it will return in a slightly better context elsewhere in this fic.

* * *

**Chapter One: "His Name Is Kettch, and He's an Ewok"**

At times like these, Wedge wondered if he was fully in command of all his senses. Then Wes Janson would show up and prove that he wasn't.

"Wes, was I crazy to think that creating a squadron out of miscreants and drop-outs would be a good idea?"

"Yes," Janson said idly, sitting down in a chair and propping his feet on Wedge's desk. Wedge irritably pushed them off.

"I appreciate your honesty," Wedge told him dryly.

Janson appraised Wedge curiously. "You look like you've fought a few rounds with a rancor," he remarked.

Wedge snorted. "Thanks, Wes. I'm sure General Crespin will appreciate that comparison." Without thinking, he leaned back and propped his boots on the desk, then realized what he was doing and hastily took them down. "We have pilots today?"

"We have pilots today, possibly the last group, if some late arrivals make it in," responded Janson, putting his feet back on the desk. This time, Wedge let them be.

"Let's get started. Who's first?" asked Wedge, taking a blissful sip of caf.

Janson consulted his datapad, which held notes and stats on the pilot candidates they were interviewing. "His name is Kettch, and he's an Ewok."

Wedge spit out a mouthful of caf and sat bolt upright in the recycled ejector seat that masqueraded as his chair. "No."

"Oh, yes," continued Janson blithely. "Determined to fight. You should hear him say, 'Yub, yub.' He makes it a battle cry."

Wedge made a noise of disbelief. "Wes, assuming he could be educated up to Alliance fighter-pilot standards, an Ewok couldn't even reach an X-wing's controls," he reasoned.

As usual, Janson had a ready answer.

"He wears arm and leg extensions; prosthetics built for him by a sympathetic medical droid," Janson explained. "And he's anxious to go, Commander," he added.

Wedge slumped down in his seat and covered his eyes with one hand. "Please tell me you're kidding," he begged.

"Of course I'm kidding," Janson assured him. "Pilot-candidate number one is a human female, from Tatooine, Falynn Sandskimmer."

"I'm going to get you, Janson," Wedge said helplessly.

Janson just grinned seraphically. "Yub, yub, Commander," he said mockingly, then was forced to duck to avoid an alarmingly large flimsi-weight hurled at his head.

"Show her in," growled Wedge.

"Whatever you say, Commander," Janson said, now laughing uncontrollably, and escaped out the door, barely avoiding another of Wedge's missiles. It bounced off the door.

Wedge rested his forehead on his desk once Janson had left. "Sithspit," he said glumly to himself.

"I'm _never_ going to live this down."

* * *

Like I said, tell me what you think of the added dialogue.


	3. Lieutenant Kettch Exposed!

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

Guess what?!

_I'M UPDATING THIS FIC!!!!!!!!!!!_

CAST OF THOUSANDS (with a decided sarcastic air): No, really?

ME: I know; it only took me forever. But there's school, and there's my other fic, "Return to the Black Pearl" (now on it's eighteenth chapter!), and there's...

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Excuses, excuses.

ME: And I've got a lot of them. The list is twelve pages in Microsoft Word.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Your excuses are no excuse.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Lieutenant Kettch Exposed! **

Wedge picked up his tray and headed towards the table dominated by Janson and two of the new pilots, Ton Phanan, a man more machine than the human norm, and Garik "Face" Loran, a man more mischievous than the human norm, walking slowly so as to not spill either his cup of caf or the citrus snow cake that rested precariously on the tray.

At the table, Face and Phanan were laughing at something that Janson was saying. When Wedge approached them, Janson sent him a brilliant smile that expressed the certain fact that he was up to no good. "Hi, Wedge," he said a bit too cheerfully for Wedge's peace of mind.

Face smirked, wrinkling the scar that traveled across his features. "We were just talking about you."

"Oh, really?" Wedge said calmly, hiding his apprehension. One thing he had learned as a commanding officer was that noncommissioned officers could smell fear.

"Oh, yes," Phanan assured him, a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Wedge furiously thought through all the embarrassing moments of his life that Janson was capable of telling—not to mention embellishing. That night at that bar on Coruscant...he shuddered. _Oh, please, don't let him have told that one_, Wedge pleaded internally. Anything but that. Even that awful mix-up at that one diplomatic reception wouldn't be as bad as that.

"Don't worry," Janson said lightly. "I haven't _completely_ ruined your reputation to the new recruits yet."

"I didn't have a reputation until I met you," responded Wedge. "Then everyone knew me as 'That poor guy forced to be the wing mate of Wes Janson.'"

Across the mess hall, Wedge noticed a commotion. Janson, Face, and Phanan turned to look.

Falynn Sandskimmer was motioning at Wedge and saying something to Kell Tainer and Piggy saBinring, something that caused them to start laughing.

Wedge felt his eyes narrow. "Wes, I blame you," he said grimly.

Janson protested, "What have _I_ done?"

Wedge felt the hairs rapidly turning gray prickle along the back of his neck with the sense of being watched, and glanced accusingly around the mess. Practically the entire room was glancing in his direction and snickering. "You tell me."

A grin was reluctantly blossoming on Janson's face. "Well, I _might_ have let slip a piece of recent history," he allowed.

"'Might have' let slip _what_ piece of recent history, Wes?" said Wedge, feeling his eyes narrowing further until they had turned into the slits of a predator stalking its prey.

The others at the table were grinning openly. Face cleared his throat and stood up a bit too quickly. "Well, I've got to be going now," he said with false cheeriness as he picked up his tray.

"Me, too," said Phanan, standing up as well. "Yub, yub, Commander," he said, then the two fled, laughing all the way, leaving Wedge alone at the table with Janson.

Janson seemed surprised at his sudden abandonment. "Hey, where are you guys going?" he asked plaintively to the mess at large. He dug into his mess hall fare and beamed at Wedge, whose features were blank with what might have been forthcoming rage.

"You told them," Wedge said carefully.

Janson chewed busily. "Well, I could hardly keep a great joke like that to myself, could I? Something of that caliber belongs to the galaxy."

"And now they know," reasoned Wedge, mostly to himself.

Janson said cheerfully, "That's right, Wedge."

Wedge sat quietly for several moments, just glaring at Janson, who pretended not to notice.

"Well, there goes any chance of living this down," Wedge sighed.

"That's right, Wedge."

Wedge was suddenly overcome with the overwhelming desire to bury his face in his arms. "I haven't even finished my first cup of caf yet," he groaned.

Janson jumped up, grabbed Wedge's cup and promptly trotted to the front of the mess. He returned in a moment and replaced the cup in front of Wedge. "There you go," he announced.

Wedge sniffed it cautiously. "What _is_ this?" he asked. The caf in the cup was normally a soothing shade of off-white. Whatever Janson had done to it had turned it an alarming shade of light green.

Janson said carelessly, "Oh, just a little something I added to give you some extra pep."

"I try to leave the pep to you," Wedge said, and took a careful sip, preparing to spit it out immediately if necessary.

It tasted different, but not bad. Wedge took a longer swig. "Wes, what is this?" he asked again.

Janson smirked. "Just a touch of Endor liquor."

"And that is?"

"The way most Ewoks take their caf."

"I'm really sorry I asked."

"I thought you'd be. Yub, yub, Commander."

"Wes?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

* * *

I promise to update quick, I really do.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: That's what you always say.

ME: But I always get around to it eventually.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: The key word being "eventually."

ME: So while you're waiting for the next chapter, take this opportune moment to review!


	4. The Psychiatric Evaluation of Lieutenant...

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

I AM ALIVE!!!!

I know; it's a shock. I bet y'all thought I was dead and you'd be getting stuff from my will. Actually, all you're gonna get is another chapter. Mwahahahahah.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Then why are we here?

ME: Don't ask me.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: But we're in your mind. You should know.

ME: Too bad. I don't.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Three: The Psychiatric Evaluation of Lieutenant Kettch **

Zzz.

ZZZZ.

_ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ._

"YUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYU—"

The sudden noise sent Wedge promptly over the side of his repulser-bed and onto the floor. "WhaddinthnameoftheSith?" he mumbled incoherently.

"YUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYUBCO—"

"_What_ is that _noise_?" Wedge grated, squashing his hands over his ears in an ineffective attempt to block the anonymous noise.

"YUBYUBCOMMANDER—"

His eyes blinking against the sudden onslaught of light that had appeared with the noise, Wedge squinted around his room. "Whatever it is, just turn it _off_," he moaned.

"YUBYUB—"

He opened his eyes further and looked around accusingly at the objects in his room that could possibly be the vessels of such an obnoxious sound.

"YUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYUBCOM—"

He crawled on his hands and knees to where his commlink lay next to his computer terminal and slammed at the "off" button as if his life depended on it. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"YUBYUBCOMMANDERYUBYUBCOMMANDERYUB—"

"Sithspit!" Wedge snarled, and then swatted at the computer.

"YUBYUBCOMM—"

* * *

Wedge strode down the hall, data pad in one hand, a cup of caf—lacking the added punch of Endor liquor, happily—in the other.

Janson stood waiting at the door of his office. "Good morning, Wedge," he greeted him cheerfully.

Wedge looked at him balefully. "It is _not_ a good morning," he informed Janson as he unlocked his door.

"What, wake up on the wrong side of the repulsar-bed?" Janson asked flippantly.

"In a manner of speaking." Wedge sighed. "You wouldn't have any idea who could have programmed Gate to wake me up early this morning?"

"No idea," Janson said innocently. "How did Gate wake you up?"

"With a loud noise," said Wedge grumpily.

"What kind of a noise?" Janson asked.

Wedge sighed again. "It was a recording of an Ewok saying 'Yub, yub, Commander' over and over."

Janson snickered. "Well, whoever did it, I'm proud of them." He placed his hand over his heart. "I've taught them well."

"I wouldn't brag about it," Wedge said sourly.

"Anyway, it's a good morning for me," Janson said, grinning. "As of today, I have leave on Coruscant for two days."

"What?" exclaimed Wedge, feeling surprised. He was sure he hadn't authorized this. It was always a bad idea to give Janson leave, because when he left from leave, he had a tendency to leave nothing left.

"That's right, Wedge. But don't worry, you won't be missing all the fun," Janson assured him.

"I shudder at your idea of fun."

"You should. Because the fun you're going to have while I'm gone includes a mandatory psychiatric evaluation."

Wedge spun around to face him. "No."

"Oh, yes." Janson looked gleeful. "That includes you and every member of the squadron."

"Then you should be the first in line," Wedge retorted.

"Oh, I was," said Janson airily. "I figured I'd have to get to the shrink first, before you wore him out."

"Wes, I'd think it would be the other way around."

"You'd be surprised, Wedge. You'd be surprised."

That, Wedge reflected gloomily, did _not _sound reassuring. That was okay, though, because he was pretty sure Janson hadn't meant for it to be.

"A psychiatrist? Is that really necessary?" Wedge asked plaintively.

"Wedge, think who you're talking about."

"Oh, yeah. That's right."

* * *

Wedge cracked his knuckles nervously while waiting outside the psychiatrist's office to discuss with the psychiatrist the reports on his officers.

"Commander?"

Wedge stepped inside the tiny compartment, where a small, nervous-seeming man sat, dwarfed in a large nerf-hide brown chair. "Yes?" he said, trying to keep his apprehension from showing. He eased into a luxurious chair, the kind of which was seldom seen in Starfighter Command.

The physiatrist wore a harassed expression. _What did they _do _to him? _Wedge wondered, alarmed.

"Commander, I've talked with the officers in your squadron, and, frankly, I'm worried."

Wedge tended to agree with him. "Oh?" he asked mildly.

The psychiatrist shuffled some flimsi-plasts around on his desk. "Most, if not all, of your pilots seem to be, ah, outside of normal ranges." He picked up one flimsi. "I'm particularly worried about one of your lieutenants."

Wedge frowned. He had expected the psychiatrist to say "second-in-command."

"One 'Lieutenant Kettch,' " said the psychiatrist, handing Wedge the flimsi.

Wedge just stared at him.

When Wedge refused to take the proffered flimsi, the psychiatrist slowly placed it back on the desk. He cleared his throat expectantly.

"I'm sorry," said Wedge, "but I'm afraid there's been some sort of mistake."

"That's right," said the psychiatrist. "It was obviously quite a big mistake to accept such a unstable character into an elite fighter-pilot squadron." He scanned Wedge's rejected flimsi. "For starters, he barely meets the physical requirements for the squadron. Actually, he _doesn't_. He is force to rely on prosthetic arm and leg extensions just to be able to reach the controls of an X-wing."

"I'm sorry," Wedge said again. "But I'm afraid you've been made a victim of my merry band of reprobates."

"I don't think this is a mistake," said the psychiatrist, handing Wedge the flimsi again. Wedge took it this time, and a something at the bottom of the page caught his eye.

"'Yub, yub, Commander,' " it read.

Wedge only sighed. For all that he was forced to put up with, his squadron had better have high morale.

"Fortunately, all the pilots seem to have high moral," offered the psychiatrist.

"They'd better," said Wedge tiredly.

* * *

Hey, you guys like _Star Wars_, don't you? I mean, if you didn't, you would be reading this, right? So go R&R a song parody I wrote called "Lookin' For Love (In Alderaan Places)"! And while you're at it, review this as well.


	5. Lieutenant Kettch At Your Disposal

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

Hmm. It's been so long since I updated this fic that I don't know if anybody is still reading it.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Except us.

ME: You read my fics?

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Only by force.

ME: Well, that's more than my beta-reader does. But it's okay, Crazy Cousin Adam, we still love you. Even if you don't email my stories back for weeks and I end up thinking you've died.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: You'd better hope he doesn't. Who else would be crazy enough to read your fics?

ME: You!!! HAHAHAHA!!!

CAST OF THOUSANDS: We walked right into that one.

**

* * *

****Chapter Four: Lieutenant Kettch At Your Disposal**

Wedge opened the door to the simulator room on the newly christened Hawk-bat Base and almost walked over Janson. "You've only been back from Coruscant for an hour," stated Wedge. "Do you really need a furball that bad?"

"You know me, Wedge," Janson said airily. "Fighting is my hobby, my passion, my life. Well, that and women," he amended.

Wedge resisted the urge to roll his eyes, a reaction that happened often in Janson's presence. "Shoo," he said.

"I'm going, I'm going," said Janson. "I'm a pirate now. I've got things to do. Booty to loot, towns to plunder." He slashed at Wedge with an imaginary vibroblade. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" he said in a singsong, and practically skipped out of the room.

Wedge punched in his personal code into the TIE-fighter simulator.

The hatch swung open. In the dark recesses of the simulator, a shadowy figure aimed a lethal-looking weapon at Wedge's head.

Out of reflex, Wedge hit the floor, rolled to the side, and came up on his knees with his own blaster in hand. He quickly prepared himself to shoot or be shot.

But no enemy fire emerged from within. Wedge frowned, and, keeping his blaster aimed at the hatch, pulled out his comlink to call security.

Face's head popped out from behind the X-wing simulator several meters away. "Is there a problem, Commander?" he asked, unconcerned.

"Get down," Wedge snapped, "there's a hostile in there—"

Face ducked behind his simulator as Wedge had done, but then took another look and rose. He smirked. "I don't think so, sir," he said.

Wedge rose suspiciously and leaned against the side of the simulator. He poked his head in the hatch for a peak, then leaned in for a longer look.

His intruder was an Ewok.

He took a third look.

Correction. His intruder was a stuffed Ewok, dressed in a miniature version of a New Republic fighter pilot's uniform, complete with an authentic-looking system control panel on his chest, a decorated helmet on his head, and a tiny blaster held threateningly in one furry paw.

In the other was a datapad. Wedge read its message and shook his head sorrowfully. It read:

_Lieutenant Kettch reporting for duty, sir._

_Yub, yub, Commander!_

"Sometimes I miss my sanity," he sighed. He gave Lieutenant Kettch a mournful look and tossed him to Face, who caught him easily. "Dispose of that," Wedge said tiredly.

Face's shoulders shook with silent laughter. He threw Wedge a sloppy salute and stumbled out with Lieutenant Kettch, Ewok pilot.

Wedge banged his head against the durasteel hatch of the simulator. _Dealing with Rogue Squadron will be a piece of citrus snow cake after _this, he thought. _If I live that long. _

* * *

Fighting cleared his head and relieved him of his stress. By the time he finished with the simulator, Wedge felt much better.

But not for long.

He had opened the simulator hatch and pulled off his helmet and was running his hands through his sweaty hair when Ton Phanan approached him.

"What?" asked Wedge, trying to stifle a yawn.

The corner of Phanan's mouth that was still flesh-and-blood twitched, suggesting a smile. "Sir, we have a situation."

_What now? _Wedge thought ruefully. He wondered what sorts of new ways the Wraiths had devised to ruin his life. He popped out of the simulator. "What kind of a situation?" he asked dryly.

Phanan's mouth twitched again. "This way, sir."

Phanan led him though Hawk-bat Base and finally stopped at the one room every station possessed.

The garbage disposal.

Wedge looked at Phanan in disbelief. "The _garbage disposal_?" he began, then he batted around at the air. "Phew! What is that _smell_? It's worse than a rancor in heat!"

Phanan just pointed. Wedge held his nose and looked. "There seems to be some kind of foreign object holding up the processor," Phanan explained.

Wedge squinted, then sighed. Foreign, indeed. It was Lieutenant Kettch, Garbage Invader. He dimly recalled telling Face to dispose of the toy. It appeared he—or someone else—had taken Wedge literally.

"I can't wait until the day I'm officially declared insane," Wedge said.

"We've got bets going about that," Phanan said. "One is for how long it will take. The other is for what will cause it."

"It won't be much longer now," said Wedge, "and it wouldn't take much."

"I'm counting on that," Phanan remarked. "I'm down for sometime in the next two weeks and a sudden absence of caf."

Wedge was quiet for a moment, then he said in a quietly desperate voice to Phanan, "Don't tell anyone about this. It will only encourage them."

His heart sank when he heard Janson's voice behind him say brightly, "Too late, Wedge."

Wedge turned and saw the majority of the Wraiths behind him, fully enjoying the Ewok spectacle, if not the smell. "Clean this up," he said to Phanan. "I think I need to lay down,"

"Sure thing," said Phanan. "Yub, yub, Commander."

* * *

So, you know, just do that whole review thing and, well, review.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: At least we're spared that arduous task.

ME: If my beta-reader dies, you will.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Live, Crazy Cousin Adam!!! LIVE!!!!


	6. Lieutenant Kettch, Mess Officer

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

Hey, look who's back with a new addition to this fic!

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Well, it couldn't be you. You never update your fics.

ME: Ooh, I've been skewered. I will now take seventeen hours to reevaluate my life.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: See that you do.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Lieutenant Kettch, Mess Officer**

Wedge glanced up from his datapad and surveyed the sea of Wraiths, all crammed into a tiny briefing room and all waiting impatiently for the meeting to be adjourned so they could return to whatever questionable and probably illegal activities they were currently involved in.

He cleared his throat. "One last thing before you go," he said. Several Wraiths groaned in dismay, and from the back of the room he heard Janson say, "Hurry up, will you? The suspense is killing me."

Wedge said, "Mess duty."

This time, the groan that echoed through the room mingled with moans, grumbling, and outright booing.

"Well, it won't be me," said Face. "I just did it, and I barely escaped with my life. Those kitchen droids are minions of the Empire."

Phanan said, "And that's not the worst of it. I lost two fingers and control over the right side of my face, and three of Runt's personalities lost their minds. Now he's in therapy, and I have a twitch."

Wedge rolled his eyes in exasperation. "It isn't that bad."

"No, it's worse," complained Janson. "Anyway, you're only saying that because you haven't had mess duty since you were promoted."

"True," said Wedge. "But I hardly think that not having mess duty makes up for being stuck with you."

Janson staggered as if he had mortally wounded. "Low blow, Wedge. But I guess it's the highest you could reach." He dropped his act of agony. "Besides, we don't want you to cook. Corellians are well-known for their lack of culinary skills."

"You're going the right way for dishwashing duty," Wedge warned him.

"I can't wash dishes," objected Janson. "My hands get all wrinkled."

"Force save us from wrinkled hands," Wedge said dryly. He held out an X-wing pilot's helmet. "Names on flimsis, please."

Once every Wraith had put their name in the helmet, Wedge shook it up and handed it to Face. "Pick one," he ordered.

"I feel so honored," Face quipped. "Unless it's me, of course." He fished out a flimsi. "And the lucky winner—or should I say unlucky loser—is…"

He unwrapped it, and when he read the name, broke out into a smirk.

" 'Lieutenant Kettch.' "

The entire room broke out in laughter. "What?" Wedge snatched the flimsi from Face's hands and quickly scanned it. It said Lieutenant Kettch, all right.

He sighed and rubbed his head. "My sanity. Where is it?"

"Going, going, gone," Phanan said.

"Very funny," Wedge said. "Let's try this again," he said, and he took another flimsi from the helmet. "'Lieutenant Kettch.'" At this, the Wraiths laughed even harder.

He took another. Lieutenant Kettch. And another. Lieutenant Kettch. And another.

Lieutenant Kettch.

Wedge growled under his breath and glanced at the Wraiths furvertivly, trying to spot the culprit. He zone in on Janson, who looked suspiciously smug. Wedge straightened up, feeling triumphant. "It would appear that our new mess officer is Lieutenant Kettch," he said calmly.

"Hope everyone likes Ewok chow," said Phanan.

Face leaned over Wedge's shoulder. "Does this mean that no one has mess duty?" he asked hopefully.

"However," Wedge continued, ignoring Face, "as Lieutenant Kettch is not able to perform this duty to the standards of the New Republic Armed Forces, Lieutenant Wes Janson will be working in his place."

More hoots of laughter and some good-natured ribbing came from the Wraiths, but Wedge's second-in-command looked unfazed. Janson stood on his seat and preformed a bow. "Thank you, thank you," he said grandiosely. "It will be an honor to destroy, I mean cook, in place of such an exalted Ewok," he added.

Wedge's stomach dropped as he realized that putting Janson on mess duty meant that Janson would be given a lot of things that had no place in his hands, like sharp objects and condiment dispensers. Not to mention giving him a way to carry off even more pranks.

_This is bad_, Wedge thought distractedly.

"I'm doomed," he said aloud.

* * *

Hey, I did my part by writing this thing and posting it. Now comes your part. Review.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: There was a "please" in there somewhere, we're sure.

ME: No, there wasn't. Review!!! I demand it of you!!! REVIEW!!!!!


	7. Kettch a la Mode

**KETTCH ME IF YOU CAN**

Well, I am back, after an impossibly long break.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Drat. We were hoping you were dead.

ME: Hey! That's not very nice.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Neither is leaving us hanging.

ME: Well…

Anyways, here's what you really want: The story!

* * *

**Chapter Six: Kettch a la Mode**

Three days later, Wedge stared at the tray in front of him with a mixture of primitive revulsion and disturbing awe at the extent of which the so-called food disgusted him.

There was something, presumably meat, but had been burned so black that it was impossible to tell what life form it had once been. There was something green and slimy next to it. Wedge was almost certain it was supposed to be dessert. He hadn't touched it, but it had gradually migrated around the tray to infect every other food item, rendering them inedible. There was also something that was brown and crunchy and smelled of must and mildew, and Wedge wondered if Janson had found it in the old storage closet where they kept the mothballs. And to make matters worse, the caf appeared to be the same thing as the lump of charcoal on his tray.

And horribly bad food wasn't even the worst of the damage Janson had wreaked on the mess hall. No meal was ever served before it was forty-five minutes late and cold, although Wedge thought that this was done on purpose, because at that point, everyone was too weak with hunger to question the smell.

That had been bad enough, but yesterday had been worse.

"Wes, what's this?" Wedge had asked Janson suspiciously when the lieutenant, flamboyantly attired in the billowing apron and enormous hat of an upper-class Coruscanti chef, appeared at the doors of the cafeteria. At that point, lunch was only thirty-five minutes late.

Janson had handed Wedge a menu, one of many that he had been carrying and handing out to all the diners.

"I've made some changes to the establishment," Janson had explained loftily, twirling a thin black moustache with curled ends around his finger. It was fake, and had made him appear vaguely sinister. In fact, Wedge had mused, it was what Darth Vader would have looked like if he's had facial hair.

"From now on," Janson had continued, "it's only the finest for Starfighter Command. Allow me to seat you."

Janson had seated him at a round table with a tablecloth and a centerpiece. Wedge had glanced at the menu rather apprehensively, but to his surprise, there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Appetizers: Endor Treeleaf Salad, Ewok Eyeball Soup; Entrees—_wait a minute_. Wedge frantically flipped back to the cover.

A large bold font proclaimed the words, "Kettch's Diner" at the top. Underneath the heading was a crudely-drawn silhouette of an Ewok with the same disturbing chef's hat and moustache that Janson had been wearing, and holding knifes larger than it's body in both hands. In tiny letters at the bottom of the picture were the words, "Yub, yub, Commander!"

The day before had been even worse. Janson had substituted Mos Eisley's celebrated—and feared—Twin Suns' Hot Sauce for the ketchup, whose labels now read "Kettch-up". Then he had merrily exchanged the seasonings in the salt and pepper shakers for various forms of spice, some of them illegal. This had caused half the pilots to wander around the base, drooling and with vacant faces, until Wedge preformed a drug test on Tyria upon leaving the cafeteria.

The day before that had been relatively unexceptional, except that Janson had painted a coat of Superglue on the seats of all the chairs and stolen all the culery, forcing everyone to eat with their fingers.

Face plopped down in the seat next to Wedge, momentarily interrupting his musings.

"This can't go on," Face declared, poking cautiously at the blackened lump on his tray. The green goo, Wedge noticed, was already beginning to spread.

"This has _got _to stop," Face continued. "There are bets going for the first person to choke and die on Janson's 'homemade oranj pie'." He took a bite out of the lump and immediately gagged.

"I'm afraid to go near him," Wedge admitted. "He's now got access to more potential weapons than we've got in the barracks. I've had to perform a weapons check every time he leaves and enters the kitchen."

Face chewed mightily. "Whose day is it to check him?" he asked unconcernedly.

Wedge froze. "Your," he said with a surge of alarm.

Face paused in mid-chew. "You _did_remember to take his blaster away from him before you let him in the kitchen, right?" Wedge prompted him, his "I've-got-a-bad-feeling-about-this" sense ringing loudly in his head.

The sharp sound of blasterfire emerging from the kitchen answered his question. Most of the people in the cafeteria immediately ducked for cover under the tables in the not-completely mistaken belief that they were in mortal danger.

"Whoop," said Face after several rounds of blaster bolts had been fired. "Guess not."

Wedge tossed down his napkin hurriedly. "I'm going in," he told Face. "If I don't come back, make sure you don't eat anything tomorrow."

He plowed through the kitchen doors and stopped dead at the scene before him.

Janson was crouching behind a barricade made from what looked like every exotic dessert pan in the New Republic, his still-smoking blaster in one hand and a wickedly sharp chef's knife in the other. The remains of a kitchen droid were scattered in various places around the kitchen, including the ceiling and the industrialized stove.

"What the _Sith_ happened here?" Wedge demanded, horrified

Face poked his head through the doors, and his eyes widened. "Good grief," he said.

"It looks like you've been fighting the Clone Wars in here," Wedge said in disbelief, glancing around at all the mayhem.

Face pointed to a smoking black lump inside a huge pot. "And it looks like lunch was a casualty," he commented.

"That's not lunch," said Janson reasonably. "That's the caf."

Face poked the charred lump with a finger. "I wouldn't do that," Janson advised. "You might make it angry."

Face swore and jerked his finger out of the pot. "Emperor's Black Bones, it _moved_!"

"Count yourself lucky," said Janson. "It bites, too."

Wedge felt sick. "Wait a minute. _This_ is what I've been drinking every day!"

"It's the dark, dirty secret of Starfighter Command," said Janson. "That's why you're never supposed to ask what's in it. But it's pretty good once you add sugar," he added helpfully.

Wedge stared nauseously at the caf pot, which sported a droid leg hanging over the rim. "Wes, why did you shoot the kitchen droid?" he asked then,

"It attacked me!" Janson said loudly. "All I did was ask what was in the Gungan meatloaf they were making for lunch, and it came after me with a blue milk butter knife!"

"That's it," said Wedge. "Out."

"What?" asked Janson.

"Out," he repeated. "Out out out. Out."

"Let me help you," Face offered, propelling a protesting Janson towards the exit. "Out."

Once in the cafeteria, the crow began to boo Janson loudly when they recognized him as the murderer of their food.

Then someone's oranj pie flew in a graceful arc through the air and splattered over Wedge's spotless uniform, missing Janson by centimeters.

The crowd gasped as a person. Time seemed to stand still for a moment.

Then Janson said, "Wedge, did you know that you happen to have some pie on your shoulder?"

Wedge looked at him levelly. He very carefully picked up the nearest plate of green goo and smashed it perfectly in the middle of Janson's face. The action brought him an almost disturbing sense of satisfaction and a large smirk.

Until someone shouted, "Food fight!" and enthusiastically hurled their tray at their neighbor.

That decided Wedge. Without thinking, he grabbed a bottle of "Kettch-up" and squirted it at Face, who ducked, but not quickly enough to avoid the liquid stream of red.

"_Hey_," Face said indignantly. "This was only clean uniform. Take _this_!" And he hurled someone's Alderaanian-style cheez noodles at Wedge's head.

Food was flying fast and furious. Wedge had to throw himself to the side to avoid a series of flying fruit from the dessert buffet and gasped as Janson energetically dumped a pitcher of caf over his head.

In retaliation, Wedge scooped up a handful of mixed-up foods from the floor and flung it on Janson's apron.

He was just about to grap another handful when the cafeteria doors were flung open and Phanan, Tyria, and Runt walked in. They stopped in surprise.

"Hey, you guys are having a food fight," Phanan said accusingly. "On a military base, with a bunch of pilots. This is so unprofessional. Why wasn't I invited?"

Wedge stood up slowly. Everyone glanced at him anxiously and, on some faces, more than a little sheepish.

Without a word, he threw his handful of food across the room at Phanan.

Then he ducked as everyone cheered and reached for the nearest item of food.

* * *

Don't deny it. You know you've always wanted to see the Wraiths in a food fight. So, review! Review! REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!Please. 


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